OTTAWA—Tawakkol Karman is slumped low in the back of the car, her husband’s arm around her, her eyes fixed on the lights passing by the window during a precious moment of quiet as she travels to the next event.

Karman is rarely seen this way. She hugs, she giggles, she juggles two phones. She poses for endless photos with admirers or pumps her fist as she tells the world about the protests that toppled dictators through the Arab world, including the one in Yemen that brought down 33-year president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

In the year since, Karman has become the first Arab woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize — and the youngest — life for the 33-year-old has been a whirlwind of meetings, speeches and accolades. She says she feels the weight of the world’s woes, from Syria to Burma.She sees the Nobel as a platform to help mitigate conflicts, while balancing her own role in Yemen’s revolution, which is far from over.

“This has given me a chance to act as a global citizen now. We suffer from the same things. Climate change, poverty, extremism; the same challenges face all of us. We need to identify ourselves as human beings, living in one land. Without that, we will lose humanity around the world.”

Her five-day Canadian tour last week, to Edmonton and Ottawa, focused on the bravery of the Arab Spring’s women and youth. The University of Alberta presented her with an honorary doctor of law degree Tuesday during the school’s convocation ceremony. “You must call me doctor now,” Karman exclaims as we pile into a car provided by Yemen’s embassy. She happily takes the middle seat.

Karman came with a message for Ottawa too, which she delivered personally to deputy foreign affairs minister Morris Rosenberg: respect the Kyoto Protocol.

Environmental protection is a key issue for Karman and especially pressing in Yemen — the Arab world’s poorest country is heavily reliant on agriculture.

Rosenberg was reportedly more concerned, during their 15-minute meeting, with Karman’s thoughts on Syria and Iran’s involvement in backing a rebel movement in Yemen’s north. The Kyoto Protocol was a non-starter.

We called her the “unlikely face” of Yemen’s revolution. There were almost no women on the streets at the beginning of Yemen’s protests. It wasn’t uncommon to go days walking among the tens of thousands of protesters and not see another female; certainly none with their faces uncovered or donning colourful head scarves like Karman.

That would change, and her example would inspire hundreds of others to take to the streets.

On the day in February 2011, when we drove together to Sanaa’s “Change Square,” her husband Mohammed al-Nahmi, also an activist, was at the wheel and Karman in the back seat, pulling apart a bouquet of fake roses, as gold glitter from the cloth flowers fell to her lap.

Once in the crush of the crowd, she tried to hand out the flowers as her admirers pressed them back at her. The celebratory scene was ripped apart when the shooting started. Everyone panicked. The crowd swallowed Karman and whisked her away. I hid in a restaurant kitchen as the outside door was pelted with bullets by forces loyal to Saleh.

It was Karman, dubbed Yemen’s “Mother of the Revolution,” who was first to call later, making sure her companions were safe. One protester was dead.

That day paled in comparison to what would come. Karman predicted early that it would take the deaths of many before Saleh would fall. She was right.

A month later, on March 18, government snipers opened up from the rooftops and shot dead 52 protesters and wounded dozens more at the end of Friday prayers. The violence continued for months. An estimated 2,000 Yemenis were killed before Saleh stepped down in a controversial Gulf-brokered deal this February.

The deal gives Saleh immunity, but Karman still traveled to The Hague earlier this year to implore the International Criminal Court to investigate his actions as war crimes. That likely won’t happen. Aside from the immunity promise, an ICC investigation would require United Nations Security Council approval.

Karman tempered her message somewhat this week. “Ali Abdullah Saleh is dead in the political life . . . but he’s making trouble and tries to make Yemen unstable. If he continues he will face sanctions,” she told me. “But now, the most important thing is that he is prosecuted by the people. That’s more important than the ICC.”

It’s hard to find Karman critics, at least those who will speak publicly. Journalists who knew her in Yemen, me included, can hardly claim objectivity. She has infectious optimism and a stunning reserve of energy. (“Four hours of sleep. I can do that; that’s all I need.”).

A former journalist , Karman is one of the tribe. Her activist career began with her journalism organization, “Women Journalists without Chains.” She became the revolutionary leader some call the “Iron Woman.”

“We can’t get close to her in Yemen,” 19-year-old Almarani said after posing with Karman.

Her biggest fan seems to be her husband. On their way to meet NDP MP’s Paul Dewar and Wayne Marston this week, al-Nahmi suddenly stopped to hug his wife in front of the Parliament Buildings. They continued walking hand-in-hand.

“You don’t see that often in Yemen,” Dr. Qais Ghanem remarked as we walked. Ghanem, a Yemen-born Canadian author, poet and retired neurosurgeon, accompanied Karman for much of the tour as a translator, although she hardly needed it as her English has improved greatly in the last two years.

Dewar spoke to al-Nahmi after their meeting, telling him about his father and his mother Marion, once Ottawa’s mayor and a member of Parliament. “It takes a special man to be able to support a woman like your wife and to share her with the world,” Dewar said. “It means you’re a real man.”

Al-Nahmi laughed. He seems comfortable being the man-behind-the-great-woman.

Earlier in the day, at a meeting at the Ottawa-based Nobel Women’s Initiative, he told the group, in Arabic, “I am proud to be introduced as Tawakkol Karman’s wife.”

Along with her mother and sisters, al-Nahmi spent much of the time that Karman was on the streets — protesting or living in a tent in Change Square — helping care for their three children: two daughters, 14 and 9, and an 8-year-old son, Ibrahim.

“We’re an electronic family,” she says. Facebook is still essential. The couple tries to stay on the road no longer than a week at a time. They’re good at sleeping on planes.

“Please help me,” Karman asked Wednesday as we were again driving to an event.

“Ibrahim told me, ‘When you come back, please bring us a present.’ I told him, ‘OK, if I have time.’ He said, ‘Mama, don’t tell me you are the present because you are home.’

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.